Washington football coach cannot pray af

Washington football coach cannot pray after games: U.S. appeals court

August 23, 2017

Reuters – August 23, 2017

A high school football coach in Washington state has failed to persuade a federal appeals court to let him kneel and pray on the field immediately after games in sight of students and parents.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Joseph Kennedy’s request for an injunction requiring the Bremerton School District, located just outside Seattle, to reinstate him and allow his prayer.

Kennedy, a Christian, said the district violated his constitutional right to free speech under the First Amendment, including by putting him on paid leave in October 2015.

MORE NEWS

When our Nation’s Founding Fathers wrote the Establishment Clause into the Bill of Rights, they envisioned it as a protective device – a means of safeguarding citizens from a federally-mandated religion. In just over two hundred years, it has instead become a weapon often wielded by government bureaucrats to stamp out any vestige of religion from our public life. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito even warned that religious liberty is “fast becoming a disfavored right.”

In the game of football, a Hail Mary pass is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage a win by throwing a long pass downfield in hopes it will be caught for a touchdown. It rarely succeeds.
In early May, an unprecedented leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion set off roiling left-wing protests when it indicated the infamous Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion might be reversed.